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Flash apps can be made section 508 compliant. You just need good developers and a bigger pot-o-gold.

Now read the license for the Flash file format specification:

2. Licenses. Pursuant to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a nonexclusive license to use the Specification for the sole purposes of developing Products that output SWF.

Plus there's the usual bullshit I'd expect in clauses 3 and 5.

What I didn't find was a clause that basically said "If our implementation differs from the spec, our implementation is correct, the spec is wrong and you are screwed". I seem to remember that being there in the past, but I might be wrong.

http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/flash_fil e_format_specification.pdf

Ahem... even by Slashdot standards, that's pretty sad.

Don't wanna pay for it? Don't use it.

Wanna use it? Figure out how to pay for it.

It seems Flash is going in three directions:

- Flex -- Enterprise Flash based on XML
- Central -- A way for them to use Flash to develop consumer apps
- Classic Flash

Classic Flash is completely hamstrung to prevent it from doing things like writing to your HD, communicating outside the basic arena of your own web site, etc. They are really paranoid about it becoming used for *other people's* spyware/malware.

Now, as far as Flash being spyware itself, they will go as far as the market lets them. If they, like any company, can make money through software add-ons like Yahoo!! toolbar, they will. But it seems unlikely that they will damage their reputation by overstepping, especially when the big money is potentially in Flex, etc.

It seems Flash is going in three directions:

- Flex -- Enterprise Flash based on XML
- Central -- A way for them to use Flash to develop consumer apps
- Classic Flash

Classic Flash is completely hamstrung to prevent it from doing things like writing to your HD, communicating outside the basic arena of your own web site, etc. They are really paranoid about it becoming used for *other people's* spyware/malware.

Now, as far as Flash being spyware itself, they will go as far as the market lets them. If they, like any company, can make money through software add-ons like Yahoo!! toolbar, they will. But it seems unlikely that they will damage their reputation by overstepping, especially when the big money is potentially in Flex, etc.

You can do this now with 3rd party systyems like iChat and Macromedia Flash's lattest derivative Breeze.

Think MS Passport, only useful.

This one has been known for awhile, and is only avaible to licensees of Macromedia Central. I believe that this requires a downloadable from flash installation of the new API. ( see the new AIM client in flash here: http://www.macromedia.com/software/central/product info/gettingstarted/, not that it works on my linux box... I don't allow flash to write to the disk.)

The other thing they mention is "AIM presence" which is a fancy term for the little online indicator grahpics that have been available to ICQ and yahoo users for years.

This one has been known for awhile, and is only avaible to licensees of Macromedia Central. I believe that this requires a downloadable from flash installation of the new API. ( see the new AIM client in flash here: http://www.macromedia.com/software/central/product info/gettingstarted/, not that it works on my linux box... I don't allow flash to write to the disk.)

The other thing they mention is "AIM presence" which is a fancy term for the little online indicator grahpics that have been available to ICQ and yahoo users for years.

Bzzzt. Thanks for playing.

Flash Accessibility FAQ

Blaming Shockwave would be blaming the wrong people, you want to blame Macromedia instead.

Or simply uninstall flash player, or only install it on browsers where you have enough control to make it behave like your want it to.

Uninstallers for Flash Player can be found here: http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/in dex.cfm?id=tn_14157

I dont want to plug my site directly, but google me and thou shalt find! :)

I dont want to plug my site directly, but google me and thou shalt find! :)

Provide me with a working flash example that at least matches google maps functionality and I may reconcider, regardless of how easy/hard to write.

OK. That application has all the visual appeal of Google Maps, just a different back end. I should probably get bonus points for including a site which was mentioned in the article, but you really don't have to bother. Really.

And 99% penetration?

OK, 98%. My bad.

ummm... Flash has supported accessibility for disabled users since version 6. Not that it's widely used, of course, but you could say the same thing about section 508 usability for most regular HTML sites too.

As far as converting XML to Flash, you can use something like Flex (expensive, but nice tools and data binding) or Laszlo (free and open source).

Garg

ummm... Flash has supported accessibility for disabled users since version 6. Not that it's widely used, of course, but you could say the same thing about section 508 usability for most regular HTML sites too.

As far as converting XML to Flash, you can use something like Flex (expensive, but nice tools and data binding) or Laszlo (free and open source).

Garg

Don't count Macromedia out. Over 98 percent of browsers have the flash player installed -- which is to say that if you design your website in flash (something that taken in moderation might be a good idea!) you have the best chance of having consistent look and feel across browsers. You also have a far richer webforms interface than straight HTML, with one implementation -- which is the aluring goal of the WHAT-WG and the absolutely insane W3C group it is trying to co-opt.

Bullshit. The advent of mature and stable standards along with browsers that actually support them is opening up worlds of possibilities that didn't exist in the heyday of the browser wars.

I've been making web pages since '94, and DOM+ECMA+CSS is one of the most powerful things I've seen in quite a while. It's exactly what the web was supposed to be before the browser wars came along and screwed it all up with blink tags and other useless shit.

Take a look at Google Maps in a fully compliant browser and see what's possible. This is the dynamic web as it was meant to be. It's got nothing to do with which browser you prefer to use - but if you want to play with these amazing standards, then you need a browser that supports them.

Yes, you could do the same thing with Flash or ActiveX. I'll leave the reasoning behind why that is wrong as an exercise for the reader. You get a hint by looking at the TLD for each of the above links...

Linux requires ten times as much support as any other operating system.

Generally, Linux users don't pay for things. If they can't get it for free, they either pirate it anyway or use something else.

I currently use 4 commercial programs on Linux, 2 of which are freely licensed (like macromedia flash player) and 2 of which I paid fairly good money for, and have paid for various distributions and other Linux software in the past. Even if you don't count the amount of free tech support, bug reports, and patches I have given back to free software at my normal billable rate, I have still paid more for Linux software than most people I know have paid for Windows software, and it was worth every penny. I don't appreciate being stereotyped as a leech because I prefer free software.

It's still easier to make a program like this in Flash; you can use ruby for a command line version. Why do you think so many are flocking to Flash now. MX 2004 Pro can do amazing things with very little work! And the next version is going to be better.

That's why I hold out hope for native flash compiling solutions like Flirt.

But it's not enough to have Flash being able to be run natively, we also need a free Flash IDE. That's where good OOP scripting languages like Ruby and Flash extensions like Ming/Ruby come in handy. With the mix of the two you can make an open source Flash IDE, using Flash as the interface elements (an interface made in flash that sends the variables on) that could send out all the info through Ruby, which would then compile the .swf for you and viola'! a Flash IDE made from Flash to compile Flash.

Now all we need is people to help Ming and all the sub project, Ming/php, Ming/Ruby, Ming/perl, et cetera, to keep up with the file format specs released by Macromedia.

It's still easier to make a program like this in Flash; you can use ruby for a command line version. Why do you think so many are flocking to Flash now. MX 2004 Pro can do amazing things with very little work! And the next version is going to be better.

That's why I hold out hope for native flash compiling solutions like Flirt.

But it's not enough to have Flash being able to be run natively, we also need a free Flash IDE. That's where good OOP scripting languages like Ruby and Flash extensions like Ming/Ruby come in handy. With the mix of the two you can make an open source Flash IDE, using Flash as the interface elements (an interface made in flash that sends the variables on) that could send out all the info through Ruby, which would then compile the .swf for you and viola'! a Flash IDE made from Flash to compile Flash.

Now all we need is people to help Ming and all the sub project, Ming/php, Ming/Ruby, Ming/perl, et cetera, to keep up with the file format specs released by Macromedia.

I'm presuming this is some sort of weird troll, moderated "informative" for some odd reason (seriously moderator, "informative"? What derf?)

Seriously, if you think the Microsoft development tools are far superior to anything else in the world, then I can only presume you've never used anything else in the world :).

You are actually encouraged to download flash player on the alternate page and return once you have it done.

I really appreciate that advise, but all I can get here seems to be: "We are unable to locate a single Web player that best matches your platform and operating system."

There's no malware associated with Flash, nor am I aware of a single active security exploit. Perhaps you could back up this assertion with some evidence?

Or maybe that it's not a standard and nobody really wants to install that crap?

Well over 90% of WWW users would disagree with you.

Sorenson makes an awesome product called 'Squeeze' that compresses video files (Quicktime/AVI/etc.) into flash Video (MUCH better than you will on your own). I recently compressed a 20mb Quicktime trailer to a 8mb one with minimal to no loss of quality. The best thing about Flash Video is that Flash has a higher penetration rate than any other plug-in and does away with cross-platform compatability issues.

Have you considered embeding videos in a flash file? Here's an article on Macromedia's web site (I think they acan handle the /. traffic). My company considered flash video before eventually deciding to go with a Windows Media streaming solution. Hope this helps.

I'm suprised to see so many people overlooking Flash video (.flv) as a perfect solution!
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/articles /video_primer.html
The flash player will install wonderfully on Win/Mac/Linux and requires no codecs (other than the flash player itself), and *most* people have flash installed.

Why don't you deliver it in flv? There are a lot of flash players and flash is now supported in near all platforms.

xabi

http://www.flvplayer.com/
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/video.ht ml

This is where technology like Macromedia Flex comes in. I've seen this stuff in action, and the process of creating complex applications is so easy it's unbelievable. A field of sortable and stretchable columns can be generated with about three lines of code, and the data that goes into it can come from any application server you like.

Sure, anything that uses the Flash player gets a hammering on Slashdot, but I sense that times are a changing around here and more people are starting to wake up to the potential of this stuff, even if it goes a little against the open source ethos of the place.

BTW, if you're a member of the "Flash sucks and I hate it because some people used to abuse it by making annoying animations with it" brigade, see my journal where I've already refuted your half-baked criticisms.

Anyone seen CFML lately?

Macromedia Contribute is a pretty good CMS app. I've used it for a few of my small clients who need to do minor updates. The learning curve is pretty small.

In my capacity as a web developer, here are the software packages that I feel you should have a firm understanding of:

1. XHTML - not just 'HTML', XHTML has a few changes that you should get used to (such as closing all tags, even <img src="..."/> and <br/> tags, and all tags being lowercase). For the upcoming specifications, such as XHTML 2.0, which will be very different (you can apply an href="..." property to ANY object, instead of having to wrap it in an <a href=..."> tag), it never hurts to be prepared.
2. CSS3 - May as well read up now, it's going to be relevant in not too long.
3. Photoshop - Use The GIMP if you must, but I find Photoshop generally does what I need it to with less hassle.
4. PHP, ASP, Coldfusion, and J2EE - You don't have to learn how to program in each one, but learn about these solutions, if for no other reason than to make compelling arguments against them if the bosses ever ask you about them (or worse, fail to ask you about them)
5. Apache and IIS - for the same reasons as listed above; also, a lot of things in Apache (mod_rewrite, for example) can help you solve problems down the road. Good things to know.
6. A good editor. I use ViM myself, but what you use is up to you. What you'll want is syntax highlighting, auto-indenting, and a powerful (preferably regex) search/replace. Learn to use your editor and you will save hours of work with seconds of typing.

And now for some soft skills. First, you'll need to learn to give effective presentations. You could use Powerpoint for this, or Keynote or Impress or just print them on transparencies and put them on an overhead projector. How you do it is up to you. Will you ever need to give presentations? Not really, but effective presentations require a lot of soft skills - eye contact, graphic design, pacing, speech tones, body language - that to be skilled in presentations in general means to be skilled in a lot of other areas.

You should also familiarize yourself with colour. Learn about Pantone, just so that you know about it. Learn how colours play off each other, which colors look good on which backgrounds. Learn about bordering, whitespace, balance, and form. Consider the Pantone Guide to Communicating with Color - out of 61 reader reviews, it got 4.5/5 stars, and is a good place to start.

Learn about logos. How companies make logos, and why. What goes into making a logo, subconscious suggestions from logos (there's a reason Playboy picked a bunny for their logo, and it's not obvious). This will help in your graphic design and page layout.

Learn about accessibility and colour-blindness.

I'm probably missing a ton of important stuff, but if you do it right and are willing to learn (and posting on slashdot seems to imply that), you'll probably learn what you need to know as you go. If not, just come back and post another Ask Slashdot.

You might have a look at Macromedia Breeze; I don't have that much experience with it (other than watching a sales presentation put on by Macromedia), but it has all of the typical meeting capabilities such as audio/video, shared screens, remote control, whiteboard, chatting, etc., in a very customizable environment. As with anything, I would test the bejeezus out of it before putting on something like this -- it's a newish product and Macromedia's pushing it pretty hard. Good luck.

Here is a Shockwave-based solution (sorry Linux) If you have the latest version of Shockwave installed then go to http://www.atomicarchive.com/DVD/starwars.html. There is no error checking, so use at your own risk ;)

Most of the 3D user interfaces that people usually mention are designed for 3D file system visualization. As others have pointed out, it is not clear that 3D adds any value for navigating the hierarchical structure of current file systems.

It gets much more interesting when you combine 3D navigation with Zooming User Interfaces (ZUIs). For example, Zoom Quilt is a collaborative art project based on Macromedia Flash that illustrates what a 3D ZUI might look and feel like. ZUIs work by creating an intuitive information landscape. The user moves "further away" to get an overview, or "closer" for more detail, while keeping a sense of orientation and structure that traditional pop-up windows and dialogs can't match (see research papers and Java demo). Zoom Quilt was assembled from different frames of content contributed by various participants. For another Flash-based example of a 3D zooming experience, see also the older Christmas Zoom.

Q: How much does Flex cost?

A: Flex pricing starts at $12,000 for a dual-CPU configuration and includes annual maintenance and Flex Builder. Licenses are available in dual-CPU increments. A free trial edition that converts to developer mode is available for use on individual developer workstations. Annual maintenance includes all Flex software updates, upgrades, and releases for the maintenance period, as well as e-mail-only technical support. In order to help ensure success, Flex customers will also want an annual support contract. To learn more, visit the Macromedia Support Programs page.

Flexible licensing and value pricing options are are available for Flex OEMs and ISVs. Please contact us for more information.

Q: Why does the Flex End User License Agreement prohibit the modification and resale of Flex components?

A: A great deal of the benefit of the Flex programming model lies in its application model. MXML is a language largely defined by the application model and, by design, Flex allows developers to extend, customize, and aggregate components to create new components that work specifically for their applications. However, allowing developers to alter the base components would create a number of subtly different application models, which would lead to MXML skills that do not transfer--not to mention much confusion in the Flex developer community.

Thank you Macromedia for the nice lecture about how prohibiting the modification and resale of Flex components is for my own good.

Laszlo has a huge advantage over Flex: it's Open Source!

-Don

Flash seems to be gaining momentum [macromedia.com] as the application development platform of choice for the web and new devices like this rumored iPod. Yet it is a closed platform that Macromedia can control at will. Is history going to repeat itself with the critical apps and content of the web era locked into one platform?

Um, yes you can.
For the last 3 years.
Bookmark pages, go back, you name it.

http://www.macromedia.com/

----
http://www.wirelessronin.com

Now the page has been slashdotted, however I beleive they mean flash not Flash.

Flash seems to be gaining momentum as the application development platform of choice for the web and new devices like this rumored iPod. Yet it is a closed platform that Macromedia can control at will. Is history going to repeat itself with the critical apps and content of the web era locked into one platform?

My first though reading this article was "Why the hell would the DOE care about ColdFusion?"

I've been using Coldfusion for years.

How would Google make video thumbnails? Macromedia has a very neat flash technology for video thumbnails. Or they could use retro video animated gif .

How about Macromedia Flash player. Runs on linux under mozilla or firefox fine.

The company has demonstrated a feature called Sidebar

I wonder if Microsoft's Sidebar "tiles" will work more like the "pods" in Macromedia Central rather than applets in Konfabrulator or Dashboard. The pods are supposed to be part of running applications, so you can see information about them while working in another. Konfabrulator and Dashboard are more like independent small applications. I also wonder if Macromedia came up with the idea first and Microsoft copied it, or if Microsoft came up with the idea on their own.

Interestingly enough, Macromedia is busy pushing it's own XML-based J2EE web application framework for creating "Rich Internet Applications" (read: flash guis) on the fly. It's called Flex and it starts at (are you sitting down?) twelve thousand dollars. Then again, before Laszlo saw the light at the end of the all-powerful, pixie-dusting, open source tunnel (i say PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE SCREEEEEEEN!) they were apparently running at 20K per server license.

On the surface, Laszlo seems to have a lot of things going for it (especially now that it's free) - after all, Flex is still *very* 1.0 - but the rub seems to be that (so far) Laszlo works with Flash Player 5 ("or better...") whereas Flex works with Flash player 7 (the latest and greatest). I know many people around here think flash is just a technology for displaying annoying animated ads and intro screens, but flash player 7 has some very... very... interesting capabilities in terms of "data remoting" (as they call it) and handling all kinds of multimedia content that you can't do in Flash 5. Basically (real quick pundit point here) it looks to me like Laszlo had a good little party going, but now they hear the ominous sound of Flash's parents coming home. Competing with Macromedia on the Flex-Flash axis using a closed source model would be like competing with Microsoft on Windows-.NET using a closed source model: you would need some very very deep pockets.

All in all, good news for us, we get a) some new free toys to play with and b) some pressure on Macromedia to develop more flexible Flex pricing. BTW: when you download Laszlo, there's a page listing all the third party stuff in there: it reads like a rogues gallery of apache/jakarta xml and web app stuff (and i mean the stuff like Batik) along with some nice surprises like RelaxNG. The ultimate proof of the pudding is in the eating, so there goes tomorrow evening.

In a completely unrelated, yet somehow similar manner, I have an issue with Flash (under Linux). Specifically, because of the lack of Windows' fonts, I oft lack text from Flash content (effectively breaking many sites). Case and point? Macromedia's very own site. The top navigation menu, as well as the drop-downs from that, are lacking all text.

I hear that you can install the MSFT web fonts pack and have better luck. Perhaps I've done it improperly, but I'm still having such issues.

The moral of the story? We need some Free^2, good, cross-platform fonts specifically designed for the web. Especially useful is bundled with our OS, or browser, or something.

Yes, even proprietary web technologies needs to be accessable by anyone and everyone, regardless of browser/OS/available fonts.

And no, I'm not implying we should have ActiveX ported to Linux. Honestly, ActiveX is fine, but it needs to stay off the web entirely for the general good.

So I was trying to be quick and funny and the result was getting "trolled". To bad there isn't a "Greedy" or "Unfunny" modifier.

I might as well and take this change to post what I really feel about this election and voting.

I hope this sweepstakes does promote people to make sure they are currently correctly registered and results in more people voting. I had moved before the last election and did not register and thus missed out on voting. And then I move again about 18 months ago, and it wasn't until this summer that I actually registered here at my new place.

And then this morning I realized that come November I am going to be out of state at the Macromedia MAX conference and I thought to myself "hey I need to looking into how to absentee vote". And low and behold Macromedia dedicated a page to links for every state on how to absentee vote.

http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/events/max/el ection/

I have since contacted my County Clerk and will be receiving my absentee ballot. It took my all of 5 minutes.

I personally am sick of 3rd party organizations like punkvoter.org trying to promote getting people to vote, but really they are just trying to get people to vote their way. I am glad that VOTEorNOT.org is not pushing an agenda, but just trying to get people to vote in general.

That site looks an awful lot like Macromedia's site. Nice, though.